Ashes
by Kinderby
Summary: Scarlett was right. (After Bonnie's death, Rhett POV)
1. Chapter 1

_Hurt_

 _A/N: This has been rattling around in the old brain-attic for a few months. Timeline overlap with lostrocket's wonderful Away the Dark is coincidental._

* * *

Scarlett was right.

He was a murderer. He had killed their baby. Their— _his_ —darling, sweet, fearless Bonnie. Who lay as though sleeping in her small bed. She would never be old enough for a big-girl bed, now. And he was totally to blame. He could not bring himself to deny her anything, and it had cost her her life.

From the sickening dark swirl came haunting pictures and echoing sounds— _splinter, thump, hoofbeats… splinter, thump, hoofbeats—_ unceasing, unyielding. There was no relief anywhere, not in Belle's comforting embrace, not at the bottom of a bottle or five. Out of this vast, yawning agony, only two thoughts clearly bubbled to the surface: Bonnie was dead because he spoiled her, and because he had cared so little about others for so long. Faceless men lurked in the periphery of his vision, men he'd killed over gold and rum and women he didn't even know, men—and some boys—fighting to keep a nation together, fighting for a cause he had always known they would win.

He had watched people die, by his own hand, and never spared a thought for their families, for the people who loved them and waited in vain for their return. And all that time, the Furies had sat back silently, counting his toll, waiting to exact it back on him. _Splinter, thump, hoofbeats_ … The universe no longer seemed a great cosmic joke, but a relentless accountant, mercilessly balancing scales. And he had only himself to blame. If he had cared more, sooner. If he had cared less, now. A lifetime of selfish acts culminating in his desperate desire to remain first and only in his precious daughter's affections: he had given in to her every whim, and this was what he had finally wrought. _Splinter, thump, hoofbeats…_

Scarlett was right—he was a murderer.

But it did not make him hate her any less.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This story was originally intended to be a one-shot, but then I thought I would continue it with Scarlett's thoughts… only then this came out instead! Call it a writing exercise.

And thank you so much, everyone who reads, and everyone who reviews! They mean the world to me.

* * *

She was crying, the bitch. Heartless cat of a mother, she stood there with tears running down her face, holding the hands of her remaining children, playing the grieving mother to the hilt, but he knew. He had loved Bonnie more than anyone else, and he was the only one going mad with grief without her: he, the murderer, the committer of filicide. He felt run through, turned inside out, a gaping wound made human. He did not know how the world continued to exist, without Bonnie. Scarlett stood apart from him, her head bowed, and he silently dared her to look up at him, to wordlessly beg for his comfort, so he could deny her. But why would she? She had never sought his comfort when she could rely on anyone else's, and she had Wade and Ella by her side. She made quite an affecting picture, holding their hands, crying at her daughter's funeral.

* * *

She was not even crying, the bitch. Heartless cat of a mother, she stood there like stone, holding the hands of her remaining children, leaving no one for him to turn to, save his mother. No one in this world loved him anymore, not like Bonnie had. He could not understand how the world continued to exist, without Bonnie. His soul felt ripped from his body, set on fire, and then laid back over his skin. He was suffocating, immolating, drowning, and he wanted it to finish him off. He stood apart from the Madonna picturesque, the façade. She would surely not want to touch him, but he would not even risk the possibility of it. He could not trust himself if she laid a hand on him; he might tear her limb from limb if she dared to try comforting him. But how could she? She was not even crying at her own daughter's funeral.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I'm trying to start writing more and more regularly, but my schedule in the next months will be daunting. Posting this while I can in hopes I'll be inspired!_

* * *

Scarlett stood in the graveyard, the sun's weak rays filtering down on her. Rhett stood a little distance away, his head bowed. He looked… wrong. It was such an absurd thought, at such a time, that she fought a mad urge to laugh. What kind of mother thought about any such thing when her favorite child was being lowered into the ground? What kind of mother even had a favorite child? How could she possibly be thinking of anything but Bonnie, whose black curls would never bounce behind her, whose sweet laugh would never bubble up to Scarlett's ears again?

But Rhett looked wrong, which, again, was an absurd thought, because how else would he look? What was there to possibly look right about burying a darling little girl?

She could not stop hearing the gunshot. Of all the things to remember, for some reason this stuck out the most. The rest was muted. She could see the little figure on her pony, hear her clear voice. _Watch me take this one, Mother!_ And then everything blurred, as panic overtook her, followed by a dreadful, calm certainty. She was cold, and there was a rushing in her ears, and for several minutes she was nearly senseless. She did not see the small form on the ground or hear Rhett's laugh turn into a strangled cry. There was only the roaring sound through her head, and a single sharp gunshot, a pitiful neigh, a large weight hitting the ground.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted salt and metal. She would not, _would not_ , cry over a horse at her daughter's funeral. She might have been a careless mother, but not even she would stoop so low.

Wade and Ella each held one of her hands. Wade looked like such a grown-up young man. Even Ella was playing the part of a little lady today, standing mostly still, and being mostly quiet. Rhett stood further away, out of her reach. She could not reach him—did not want to reach him, she reminded herself. He was—he had done this, she thought again. Darling Bonnie! The pain ripped at her throat as she remembered what she had said, and the look in his eyes as she said it, before his face had shuttered with hatred once more. No, he would not look kindly on her if she reached out, whether to comfort him or be comforted. Her throat ached and burned with unshed tears, but she could not cry. It seemed to be a grief beyond tears.


End file.
